Applied Scientist II, Books Science (Reading & Discovery)

Passionate about books? The Amazon Books team is looking for a talented Applied Scientist II to help invent, design, and deliver science solutions to make it easier for millions of customers to find the next book they will love. In this role, you will
- Be a part of a growing team of scientists, economists, engineers, analysts, and business partners.
- Use Amazon’s large-scale computing and data resources to generate deep understandings of our customers and products.
- Build highly accurate models (and/or agentic systems) to enhance the book reading & discovery experiences.
- Design, implement, and deliver novel solutions to some of Amazon’s oldest problems.
Key job responsibilities
- Inspect science initiatives across Amazon to identify opportunities for application and scaling within book reading and discovery experiences.
- Participate in team design, scoping, and prioritization discussions while mapping business goals to scientific problems and aligning business metrics with technical metrics.
- Spearhead the design and implementation of new features through thorough research and collaboration with cross-functional teams.
- Initiate the design, development, execution, and implementation of project components with input and guidance from team members.
- Work with Software Development Engineers (SDEs) to deliver production-ready solutions that benefit customers and business operations.
- Invent, refine, and develop solutions to ensure they meet customer needs and team objectives.
- Demonstrate ability to use reasonable assumptions, data analysis, and customer requirements to solve complex problems.
- Write secure, stable, testable, and maintainable code with minimal defects while taking full responsibility for your components.
- Possess strong understanding of data structures, algorithms, model evaluation techniques, performance optimization, and trade-off analysis.
- Follow engineering and scientific method best practices, including design reviews, model validation, and comprehensive testing.
- Maintain current knowledge of research trends in your field and apply rigorous scrutiny to results and methodologies.
A day in the life
In this role, you will address complex Books customer challenges by developing innovative solutions that leverage the advancements in science. Working alongside a talented team of scientists, you will conduct research and execute experiments designed to enhance the Books reading and shopping experience. Your responsibilities will encompass close collaboration with cross-functional partner teams, including engineering, product management, and fellow scientists, to ensure optimal data quality, robust model development, and successful productionization of scientific solutions. Additionally, you will provide mentorship to other scientists, conduct reviews of their work, and contribute to the development of team roadmaps.
About the team
The team consists of a collaborative group of scientists, product leaders, and dedicated engineering teams. We work with multiple partner teams to leverage our systems to drive a diverse array of customer experiences, owned both by ourselves and others, that enable shoppers to easily find their perfect next read and enable delightful reading experiences that would make Kindle the best place to read.
- 3+ years of building models for business application experience
- PhD, or Master's degree and 4+ years of CS, CE, ML or related field experience
- Experience in patents or publications at top-tier peer-reviewed conferences or journals
- Experience programming in Java, C++, Python or related language
- Experience in any of the following areas: algorithms and data structures, parsing, numerical optimization, data mining, parallel and distributed computing, high-performance computing
- Experience using Unix/Linux
- Experience in professional software development
Our inclusive culture empowers Amazonians to deliver the best results for our customers. If you have a disability and need a workplace accommodation or adjustment during the application and hiring process, including support for the interview or onboarding process, please visit https://amazon.jobs/content/en/how-we-hire/accommodations for more information. If the country/region you’re applying in isn’t listed, please contact your Recruiting Partner.